Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness by Scott Jurek, Steve Friedman

vitamins as well. The Udo’s Oil makes it taste buttery.
     
½
cup unpopped popcorn
2–3
tablespoons Flora Oil 3-6-9 Blend
1
teaspoon sea salt
3–4
tablespoons nutritional yeast
    Using an air popper, pop the popcorn into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the popcorn with the oil, salt, and nutritional yeast to taste, mixing thoroughly.
    MAKES 4 SERVINGS

8. Attack of the Big Birds
    ANGELES CREST 100, 1998
Strength does not come from physical capacity.
It comes from an indomitable will.
— MAHATMA GANDHI
     
    Dusty was screaming at me in Spanish. It felt as if I had stepped into a familiar nightmare. I was tired and sore, trying to will myself up a mountain trail at 7,000 feet. Dusty was already there, on the ridge, and he was hurling insults my way, just as he had hurled them at me for so many years in Minnesota. But it wasn’t a nightmare. And why Spanish?
    My dad and I had started talking again. No big hugging, I’m-so-sorry-now-I-see-what’s-important moment. We weren’t those kind of people. Leah and I had gotten married at her folks’ house on August 17, 1996, just west of Duluth, and my dad brought my mom from the nursing home. Dusty was there, too, wearing a black suit and a tie printed with a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He called it his going-to-court outfit. Dusty and my dad were both pissed that I was getting married and there was no alcohol, so they went back to my dad’s place and drank Milwaukee’s Best.
    Soon after that my folks divorced (I found out later it was my mom’s idea to move to the home and her idea to divorce—she didn’t want to be a burden). I was starting my second and final year of physical therapy training, still skiing, but just for fun and to keep in shape for running, and still eating meat four or five times a week. I was making clam chowder and grilling chicken and pork chops. I was dipping into a few of the less crazy–sounding recipes from The Moosewood Cookbook, but I was still an animal protein athlete.
    And then another epiphany hit me. This time it came in a giant bowl of chili. It was December, a cold Wednesday night, and fifteen of us had just finished a 10-mile ski through Duluth’s Lester Park. It was a regular gathering of some of the local ski crowd, usually followed by burgers and beers at a nearby pub. That night we went to a microbrewery, where the cook had a reputation for being adventurous—in Duluth it meant he might serve burgers on something other than white bread. One of the guys suggested I try the vegetarian chili, and even though I had never liked regular chili, I agreed.
    I couldn’t believe the taste. The chilies, the tomatoes, and the beans combined into a spicy winter ambrosia. I suppose it’s possible that I was overtired or in such a good mood after a long ski that anything would have tasted good, but that vegetarian chili was about the best thing I had ever eaten. And because of the bulgur wheat, it had the texture of beef chili (see [>] for the recipe).
     
    Meanwhile, I ran farther. I ran faster. The periods of soreness and fatigue that resulted were shorter and less severe. I was convinced it was the result of the plants I was eating and the meat I was not eating. The chili showed me I could recover faster without abusing my taste buds.
    In the spring of 1997, I left for my final physical therapy internship, at an orthopedic clinic in Seattle. Leah stayed in Minnesota, and to save money, I stayed at a hostel on Vashon Island. Every morning I would wake at six, drive to the ferry, then, after the 20-minute ride through Puget Sound to Seattle, ride my bike the 8 miles to the clinic.
    Seattle is where I became almost completely converted into a vegetarian. Part of it was the city itself. It seemed like every grocery store I visited was filled with information about local produce or a new vegetarian restaurant around the corner. The grocery stores all sold grains and spices I had never heard of. In Duluth, ethnic cuisine meant